In the Face of Death and Duty
by Samyo
Summary: "You lose a battle, they still write songs. You win a battle, you still lose swords. And if you die, it all no longer matters, except for those you leave behind." Stannis POV. AU fic. Set years after season 2 so everyone is legal. Sansa/Stannis.


Disclaimer: Own nothing.

Author's Note: AU Fic. Set years after season 2 so everyone is legal here. Also, there is smut.

* * *

Tomorrow we leave for a battle. To win. And to lose.

You lose a battle, they still write songs. You win a battle, you still lose swords. And if you die, it all no longer matters, except for those you leave behind.

I gave Davos instructions, in the case I fail to sit upon the Iron Throne again.

My heir. My daughter. My Shireen. Her blue eyes and grey scars. The little girl that refused to die. He will keep her safe. He must keep her safe.

I make my way up the stairs. The sounds of the men with wine and whores and songs drift in and out in the air.

In the face of death, the true face of man is revealed. Gluttony. Fucking. Regret. Repentance. Denial.

Death is what makes us realize how insignificant we truly are. We don't care about what happens afterward. Robert sure as hell didn't.

When we first broke the walls, finally took the Red Keep, we were greeted with blood. And screaming. And mangled bodies of maidens and children and old men. Innocents withering away in the dungeons. That whore of a wife you took, Robert. Robert, look at what she has done.

She made your kingdom bleed. She gutted it and strangled it and left it to die.

You were never suppose to be King. We never supposed to be kings.

I have lost so many swords to her and her kind. I have spent so many sleepless nights because of them. I have starved. I have collapsed from exhaustion. I should be dead.

I fell under the spell of the Woman in Red.

I killed our brother.

Robert, we should have never have been kings, but I am King now. And I killed your Queen. And I found my own.

Ned's little girl. Your Queen's bastard killed Ned right in front of her. The only man you ever loved as a brother. Whose sister shattered you. That bitch made her watch him die.

When we marched to take King's Landing, Ser Jon Snow, his bastard son but a son that would make him proud, spoke of a little girl he once knew. Who picked flowers and sung songs.

The Sansa I first saw was a woman standing in a hall in shock, blood flowing from her side. Bleeding lips and purple jaw. Darkened, sad, dead eyes.

That bitch of a wife strangled what she could of that sweet little girl out of her.

The woman I saw was once Ned's little girl, and your Queen took everything she loved, torturing before murdering it. But where your Queen broke and shattered, Sansa stayed strong.

My Sansa stayed strong. My wife stayed strong. My wife.

If I must die in battle. If I must gurgle blood and gasp for my last, pathetic breath. If I must close my eyes for the final time...

I enter my chambers, locking the door behind me. Not even Davos will disturb unless there's an emergency.

The Kingdom is in a civil war. It would have to be some emergency.

I hear 3 knocks behind a curtain, hiding a secret door.

I shove the curtain aside and pull the rusty handle. I reach out into the darkness. Your hand touches mine.

I pull you out and shut the door. I bother to hide it with the curtain for a reason I do not know.

You stand, back against the wall, with those lips, those eyes, smiling. My heart is pounding. My breathing changes.

My hands, over your dress, caress your stomach, your waist, your back. Your hands, over my doublet, move up my chest, my shoulders, my neck.

You kiss my bottom lip. Suck it. I press you up against the wall.

I kiss you hard. I hear you moan and feel fingers digging into my shoulder blade and tugging on my hair.

Our tongues collide. I clumsily position myself so I grind up into the place between your thighs. I'm so hard, I feel strangled in my breeches. I can't hold back the moan which escapes into your mouth. I feel you smile in reply.

I break the kiss and hear you give a tiny whimper. I stare into your eyes, your nose and forehead touching against mine.

Your smile. Gods, your smile.

I don't deserve you.

"But I'm what you need. And I'm what you want. And I chose you, remember?"

You lead me to the bed, moving my hands to the ties of your dress. I kiss your neck and move a hand underneath your skirts.

Your dress slides off your shoulders. Your knees bend onto the mattress. I reach around to rub you through your small clothes. I press myself harder into your backside.

Your body trembles. From either fear or lust or both. I hear you whimper as I slip my hand underneath and feel how wet you are.

Do you want me to stop?

Your dress slides down your chest. With one hand, you slide your small clothes down your thighs. The other, you make me rub you harder, faster.

You quietly whimper, moan, and gasp. You reach back to put your hand on the back of my neck, but end up grasping my hair to keep from falling on all fours on the bed.

I roll a nipple in between two fingers. Your guiding hand moves to tug down my fastened breeches. You buck back and rub against me harder now. I moan into your ear.

What you do to me, woman.

Bent over with knees on the bed, your elbows soon to follow, I insert fingers into your slick tightness. Your breathing hitches. Your movements still. I unfasten my breeches with my free hand.

I could take you now. Like this. Like Robert took his whores.

Sansa.

I gently flip you over onto your back. I position myself between your thighs. You cup my face in your hands.

I don't want to hurt you.

You kiss me.

If you want me to stop.

"Stannis."

I kiss you hard as I enter you, slowly. I shiver you're so tight. When I thrust to break your maidenhead, I can feel you your nails digging into my back even through my doublet. My kiss stifles any of your sounds of pain.

Legs wrapped around my waist, I keep the rhythm slow but strong. I moan into your neck and kiss it afterwards.

I won't be able to last much longer. It has been too long, and you're just so tight. And I can feel you pulsing around me. And I hear lusty moans starting to escape from your lips.

Sansa.

I collapse on you, overcome by the ecstasy rush. My breathing is hard and my heart beats harder. You run your hands over my head, my neck.

"I'm yours now."

You don't say it with regret. Or as a compromise. Or as a obligation.

Your eyes twinkle with your warm smile. Your skin is flustered by tremors of pleasure.

My Queen.

"Your wife."

My wife.

* * *

We both fall onto the pillows, bodies entwined. Out of breath. Moaning. Groaning. Drenched in sweat. Still consumed by the feelings of release.

Nothing else matters except what is happening now.

All of your skin against all of mine. Porcelain against war weathered hide.

But there is a crack, a scar running up your side. Above your hip to below your breast. Rough due to unpracticed stitching. Curved like a crescent moon.

Your eyes are closed and your face is peaceful, but I still remember what lurks underneath.

They broke you. Over and over again. That's the only reason you ended up with me.

I get all the broken things that refused to die. Ever since I was a little boy. Birds with broken wings. A seat drenched in a family's blood. A throne that no longer rules them all.

I could never fix them fully. They were still slower, weaker, more vulnerable.

I should have tried to fix you, Robert.

I don't want to lose Davos, the only man alive I can consider a friend.

I don't want to lose Shireen, my little girl, the only person alive where for the briefest moments, I can see bits of our mother.

I don't want to lose my wife, the one I chose, and who chose me as well.

But wants, in the end, mean nothing. Duty to our right means everything.

If I must die to preserve our right, I shall, because that is my duty. It doesn't matter that I don't want to die, that I don't want to leave those I love behind.

* * *

Please review. Anons are more than welcome.


End file.
